Questions to Ask Your Partner That Are Worth Asking

Not 200 questions. About 40 that actually tell you something, sorted by how well you know him, plus the research on why taking turns matters more than the questions.

Lists of 200 questions to ask your partner are easy to write and nearly useless. Nobody works through 200 questions. What happens is you pick four from the top, they are the four everyone picks, and you get the answers he gives everyone.

This is a shorter list. Around forty questions, sorted by how long you have known him, chosen because people rarely have a prepared answer to them.

The thing that matters more than the list

Before the questions: answer them yourself, ideally first.

The best evidence on building closeness through conversation comes from a 1997 study by the psychologist Arthur Aron, published as The Experimental Generation of Interpersonal Closeness. Pairs of strangers worked through 36 questions that escalated in personal depth, taking turns to answer. They reported substantially more closeness afterwards than pairs who made small talk, in under an hour.

The mechanism was not the questions. It was reciprocal disclosure: each person revealing slightly more, in turn. A list of questions delivered one-directionally is an interview, and people give shorter answers in interviews.

So the rule for everything below: ask it, then answer it.

Early on, when you barely know him

Aim for things he has not been asked at every other first date.

1. What have you changed your mind about in the last few years?
2. What does a genuinely good Saturday look like for you?
3. What is something you are unreasonably competitive about?
4. Who do you call when something goes wrong?
5. What did you want to be at about twelve?
6. What is the best thing you have read or watched lately, and why that one?
7. What is the thing people usually get wrong about you?
8. What would you be doing if money were not a factor?
9. What is a small thing that reliably improves your day?
10. Is there anything you are quietly proud of that never comes up?

Number four is the most useful of these. A man with nobody to call is not disqualifying, but it tells you where the emotional load in a relationship would end up.

More on the first date version of this in first date questions.

A few months in

By now the polished answers are gone and you can ask about how he actually operates.

11. What does your family do that you have decided not to do?
12. How do you know when you are stressed? What do you do about it?
13. What do you need from someone when you are having a bad week?
14. What is something you have wanted to say to me and have not?
15. When did you last change your mind about a person?
16. What does being looked after look like to you?
17. What are you like when you are angry? What should I know about it?
18. What did your parents get right?
19. What is the closest friendship you have, and what makes it work?
20. What do you think I get wrong about you?

Eleven is the single most informative question on this page. It gets you what he grew up around and evidence that he has thought about which parts to keep, which is most of what determines how somebody behaves in a relationship.

Thirteen and sixteen are worth asking even in a good relationship, because most couples are quietly operating on guesses about both.

Questions for a long relationship

These are for people who already know each other well and have stopped asking anything.

21. What is something you have changed your mind about since we met?
22. What do you miss about how we used to be?
23. What do I do that makes things easier for you that I probably do not notice?
24. What do I do that makes things harder?
25. Is there anything you have stopped mentioning because it did not go well last time?
26. What would you like more of from me?
27. What are you looking forward to?
28. When did you last feel properly close to me?
29. What is something you want that you have not said out loud?
30. If we could change one thing about how we live, what would it be?

Twenty-five is the one that surfaces the most. Most long relationships contain a small pile of abandoned topics, and that pile is usually where the distance came from.

If those land well, there is more in emotional intimacy exercises, which covers how to make this a habit rather than a one-off conversation.

Lighter ones, for when the mood is wrong for the above

Not every conversation needs to be significant.

31. What is the worst haircut you have ever had?
32. What is a film everyone loves that you cannot stand?
33. What was your most embarrassing phase?
34. What would your specialist subject be?
35. What is the strangest job you have ever had?
36. What is something you are completely irrational about?
37. Who would play you badly in a film?
38. What is the worst advice you have ever been given?
39. What do you do when nobody is watching?
40. What is the most overrated thing in the world?

These matter more than they look. Couples who can still be silly with each other tend to weather the rest better, and thirty-six in particular produces good material for years.

How to ask without it feeling like a survey

One or two at a time. Not a session.

Answer first. Every time. It is the whole mechanism.

Take the first answer as the beginning. The useful part is usually the follow-up, not the answer.

Do not use these to make a point. A question with an agenda is not a question, and everyone can tell.

Drop it if he is not in the mood. Nothing kills this faster than persistence.

Frequently asked questions

What are good questions to ask your partner? Questions there is no prepared answer to. What they have changed their mind about, who they call when something goes wrong, what their family does that they have decided not to do.

How many questions should I ask at once? One or two. The point is a conversation, and a run of questions without you disclosing anything turns into an interview.

Do the 36 questions actually work? The underlying effect is well supported. Aron’s 1997 study produced measurable increases in closeness between strangers in under an hour, driven by taking turns to disclose rather than by the specific questions.

What should I ask a guy I just started dating? Things with no rehearsed answer. What a good Saturday looks like, what he has changed his mind about, who he calls when something goes wrong.

What questions strengthen a long relationship? Ones about the present rather than the past. What you do that helps, what you do that does not, and whether there is anything he has stopped bringing up.

Is it strange to ask your partner questions from a list? Only if you read from it. Pick two you are genuinely curious about, and answer them yourself first.